Posts Tagged Personal Is Political

Chloe’s post earlier this week about The Little Mermaid got me thinking about my own experience with this film. I definitely identify with the experience of looking back at something from childhood through a feminist lens and seeing it very differently. I agree with Chloe’s critiques, as well as many of the critical and positive interpretations in the comments to the post – the film does have a lot of problematic elements, but there are also some positive messages in the story.

The post got me thinking about what I personally brought to this film, though, what I read in the story that connected with my own experience. This sort of read of pop culture is a staple for members ...

When I was a little girl, I loved Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I mean, I loved it. I used to sit in front of the TV screen for hours at a time, rewinding the video as soon as the movie ended, to watch it all over again from the start. I used to – and I can’t believe I’m about to reveal this publicly – sit in the bathtub wearing swimming flippers, combing my hair and singing like Ariel. So I mean it when I say that I loved The Little Mermaid.

When I was about seven or eight, Ariel and I parted ways, and it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college, when I had a roommate who ...

When I was a little girl, I loved Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I mean, I loved it. I used to sit in front of the TV screen for hours at a time, rewinding the video ...

My bathroom door has been broken since August of 2008. This might not seem like a feminist issue, but stick with me…
I own my apartment and so I’m really proud of my space and like to make it better. So, why have I not fixed this? Presumably a door knob isn’t too expensive. It’s not a financial issue. Sure, I could claim I’m too busy, but I’ve spent time on far less immediate and important things in the last couple of years. Let’s be real, there are deeper reasons.
Part of why I haven’t fixed it is due to a nasty combo of personality and socialization–I tend to think that fixing a problem is more difficult than it is ...

My bathroom door has been broken since August of 2008. This might not seem like a feminist issue, but stick with me…
I own my apartment and so I’m really proud of my space and like to ...

Tegan and Sara, Wake Up Exhausted
Last week I went to a Tegan and Sara concert. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a Canadian music duo comprised of queer twins, Tegan and Sara. Their music has become more popular over the years and they played an awesome show in DC.
Seeing them perform for the second time got me thinking back to when I first got to know their music. It was the summer before my senior year of college, and I had just come out. I was living in my hometown, doing a program at the local university. I didn’t know any queer folks there and didn’t feel comfortable coming out to the other students in ...

Tegan and Sara, Wake Up Exhausted
Last week I went to a Tegan and Sara concert. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a Canadian music duo comprised of queer twins, Tegan and Sara. Their ...

I’ve been thinking about the power of the personal a lot lately, particularly the ways in which we do or don’t show up as feminists in different contexts. Women’s studies classroom? Sure, everybody’s doing it. First dinner out with the new boyfriend’s conservative parents? Maybe not so much. It can be really difficult to make these kinds of choices, as insignificant as they might seem. As sociologist Erving Goffman argues, we are always performing different selves depending on the context we find ourselves in.
When I wrote my first book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I incorporated feminism into my analysis, I suggested feminism as a solution of sorts for the epidemic of perfectionism and body image distortion so ...

I’ve been thinking about the power of the personal a lot lately, particularly the ways in which we do or don’t show up as feminists in different contexts. Women’s studies classroom? Sure, everybody’s doing it. First dinner ...

When a friend is sick, you bring her soup. When she loses a loved one, you bring her flowers. But what do you do when she has an abortion?
Last week, one of my good friends announced to me that she was two and a half months pregnant, and had booked an appointment for an abortion that weekend. I offered to come with her, an offer she refused, saying she preferred to be alone.
Saturday morning came and went, and she had her abortion. She wasn’t emotional about it; she had only recently discovered that she was pregnant, and felt no attachment to the fetus. She wasn’t nervous or afraid; it wasn’t her first abortion, and she knew what to ...

When a friend is sick, you bring her soup. When she loses a loved one, you bring her flowers. But what do you do when she has an abortion?
Last week, one of my good friends announced ...

I turned 30 a few days ago, as Jessica sweetly noted. Suffice it to say that the dawn of my third decade corresponded with a whole shitload of personal upheaval–as Miriam and Samhita reminded me, my Saturn Returns. I don’t go in for new agey stuff all that much (a product of daughter rebellion, mostly), but I swear it has felt like all of that astrological stuff is more than just hooey as of late.
But I digress, I wanted to write about hair. I did that thing that so many people do when their lives change–I tried to externalize it in some symbolic way. This is not my tendency. When I studied abroad in South Africa and almost everyone ...

I turned 30 a few days ago, as Jessica sweetly noted. Suffice it to say that the dawn of my third decade corresponded with a whole shitload of personal upheaval–as Miriam and Samhita reminded me, my Saturn ...

As 2009 comes to a close I’m wrapping up my first year of giving donations in a deliberate way. I don’t make a lot of money, and in fact I’m worth a negative amount if you count my student loan debt. But this is the first year I’ve made enough money that I have a little bit of flexibility in my finances. My thinking around donating has changed a lot recently, too. I don’t come from money and it’s something I’ve never been comfortable talking about. I also let my anti-capitalist politics serve as an excuse to hide from the financial realities of some of the organizing work I do – I’d work with nonprofit organizations and benefit from their ...

As 2009 comes to a close I’m wrapping up my first year of giving donations in a deliberate way. I don’t make a lot of money, and in fact I’m worth a negative amount if you count ...